The jeers echoed louder than Leo's own power ever could.
"C'mon, Soundwave," sneered Kael, his fists crackling with ember-like energy. "Defend yourself. Or do you need a megaphone to make your puny squeaks hurt?" Behind him, Mira giggled, her form flickering like a mirage—a side effect of her light-bending abilities. The trio of academy bullies had cornered Leo again, this time near the moss-eaten gates of the abandoned Ironfang Dungeon. Its shadow loomed behind them, a skeletal maw of rusted metal, a relic from the first Esper Wars.
Leo clenched his jaw, his palms sweating as he raised them. A faint hum buzzed in the air, like the whine of a gnat. A ripple of visible sound—a pale, trembling wave—shot toward Kael. It dissipated against the bully's smoldering forearm, scattering like mist.
"Pathetic," Kael spat. A whip of fire lashed out, searing Leo's shoulder. He stumbled back, biting down a cry. Weak. Always weak. The taunts weren't new—neither was the burn of failure. Sound manipulation. A "utility-class" power, the instructors had labeled it. Good for shattering glass, maybe. Not for combat. Not in a world where Espers hurled lightning or forged swords from their bones.
"Enough, Kael." Mira's voice dripped with mock pity. "His mom's already got one foot in the grave. Wouldn't want her to die of shame *twice*."
Leo's hands shook. His mother's cough, wet and rattling in their cramped apartment, flashed in his mind. He lunged, soundwaves screeching from his throat—a raw, unfocused burst. The bullies scattered, laughing. A dumpster nearby vibrated, its metal groaning.
"Look out!" yelped Jax, the third bully, his granite skin chipping as he ducked. "He might… *deafen* us!" Their laughter chased Leo as he fled, his ears burning hotter than the fire-kissed wound on his shoulder.
---
He didn't realize he'd wandered into the Old Quarter until the cobblestones turned uneven, and the air smelled of damp stone and hearth-smoke. The district was a graveyard of crumbling dojos and tea shops, home to retirees and has-beens. And yet, Leo found himself pausing by a tiny plaza, where an old man sat feeding pigeons.
The man looked as weathered as the statues around him, his hair a stormcloud tuft, his hands scarred but steady as they scattered seeds. Something about him made Leo hesitate—the stillness, maybe. Or the way the pigeons cooed in odd, rhythmic harmony.
"Sit, boy," the man said, not glancing up. His voice was a rasp, like wind through dead leaves. "You're blocking their lunch."
Leo almost walked away. But the ache in his shoulder, the raw shame in his chest—they anchored him to the spot. He slumped onto the bench.
"Your power," the old man said abruptly, tossing a handful of seeds. "You hate it."
Leo stiffened. "How did you…?"
"You've got the look. Like a man staring at a rusted sword, blaming the blade instead of his own grip." The man finally turned. His eyes were milky, blind—yet Leo felt *seen*. "What's your ability?"
"Soundwaves," Leo muttered. "Useless ones."
The man snorted. "I knew a girl who could grow her fingernails. Just her fingernails. By twenty, she could slice through Titan-class dungeon walls." He leaned closer. "It's never the power, boy. It's the *mind*. The grit."
Leo opened his mouth to argue, but the man raised a hand. A shimmering rectangle—no larger than a playing card—flickered above his palm. A barrier, wafer-thin and faintly blue.
"See this?" the man said. "Took me decades to stop envying the flashy ones. Barriers. 'Defensive-class,' they said. Useless alone." His lips quirked. "But then I wondered—what if I layered them?"
The card-sized barrier suddenly compressed, folding in on itself until it was a dense, dark square. Another barrier formed around it, then another—each collapsing into the core. The cube shrank smaller, darker, until it was a speck of black, humming with barely contained force.
"Pressure," the man said softly. "Stack enough layers, and even air becomes a weapon." With a flick, the black cube shot toward a nearby stone fountain. It passed through silently—and the entire structure *imploded*, collapsing into dust.
Leo's breath caught.
"Your soundwaves," the man said, as the pigeons fluttered back, unperturbed. "You throw them like open hands. But sound… sound is *pressure*. Vibration. Focus it. Contain it. Make it resonate." He tapped Leo's temple. "The weakness isn't your gift. It's your imagination."
---
That night, in the cramped closet he called a room, Leo replayed the old man's words. His mother's coughs seeped through the wall, each one a knife-twist in his gut. He raised a hand, summoning a feeble soundwave—a visible ripple in the air.
Pressure, he thought. Not a wave. A blade.
He tried squeezing the vibration, picturing it collapsing inward. The ripple shuddered, warping into a jagged, shuddering spike. It sliced through his desk lamp, cleaving it cleanly in two.
Leo stared. Then he smiled.
Somewhere in the city, a dungeon gate creaked open. But for the first time, Leo wasn't afraid of the monsters within.
He'd just found his own.